There Are Many Types of Islands

IMAGINE a world without islands. Biologists often use the word 'island' to mean something other than just a piece of land surrounded by water. From the point of view of a freshwater fish, a lake is an island: an island of habitable water surrounded by inhospitable land. From the point of view of an Alpine beetle, incapable of flourishing below a certain altitude, each high peak is an island, with almost impassable valleys between. There are tiny nematode worms (related to the elegant Caenorh...

 Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans was chosen in the 1960s as an ideal experimental animal by the formidably brilliant South African biologist Sydney Brenner. He had recently completed his work, with Francis Crick and others at Cambridge, on cracking the genetic code, and was looking around for a new big problem to solve. His inspired choice, and his own pioneering research on its genetics and neuro-anatomy, has led to a worldwide community of Caenorhabditis researchers that has grown into the thousands....